Sky-high with 'The Aviator,' an ode to a man and his myth

Trying to capture on film the enigma that was Howard Hughes
sounds like a recipe for futility, but the last thing you expect
Martin Scorsese to do is crash and burn.

Instead, in the new eye-treat spectacle, nostalgic throwback and
determined character study "The Aviator," things mostly soar, as
Scorsese invents one of the most watchable and entertaining films
of the year. That is, if you don't mind one stunning, horrible
(though not fatal) plane crash and a dozen or so milk bottles
filled to the brim with urine. But more on that later.

"The Aviator" covers the years when Hughes, already one of the
world's richest men, was young, strong and deeply locked into his
directing effort of "Hell's Angels," a war-plane movie where the
costs never ended. Hughes was driven to perfection on the film,
damn the costs. This obsession for absolute perfection, we are
taught later, was a vital aspect of his compulsive behavior.

But unlike most film directors, what Hughes really wanted to do
was build airplanes and fly. And so he did, because he got what he
wanted, mostly. With Leonardo DiCaprio as Hughes, the story takes
us through the making of "Hell's Angels," the romances Hughes
enjoyed -- or sometimes did not -- with glamorous stars such as
Katherine Hepburn and Ava Gardner, and the intense, competitive
drive that fueled Hughes and his aircraft business to compete with
an established airline giant. This drive, peppered with
extraordinary success, also cost Hughes dearly, and nearly led to
his total downfall.

And as any follower of American cultural history knows, it was
his personal obsessions and his inability to cope with the outside
world, both its germs and its inhabitants, that ultimately sent
Hughes to his fate as the century's most infamous recluse.

But what a ride before that. "The Aviator" captures the Hughes
journey with intensity for its subject matter, namely the man's
obsession with flying, his competitive nature and his unending
desire for beautiful women. His romance with Hepburn was crucial,
and scenes with DiCaprio and the always-inventive Cate Blanchett
are crackling, especially those leading to their breakup, a
dismantling that would send Hepburn into the arms of Spencer
Tracy.

Likewise, Hughes feeds off the strength of Gardner, played as
pistol-whip tough by Kate Beckinsale. These fitful unions with
strong women seem to destroy him then feed his drive, giving Hughes
the energy to take on less formidable challengers such as TWA and
the U.S. Senate.

"The Aviator" also covers the genesis of the man's mental slide.
We see Hughes barely survive a single-passenger test-plane crash in
the heart of Beverly Hills, but also see him unable to cope with
his panic concerning personal contamination, leading to constant
hand-washing and a hermetically sealed environment of sorts, in his
own studio, surrounded by the aforementioned jars of his own urine,
preserved and lined up as if an ultra-clean shrine to himself.

As much the strangeness, though, "The Aviator" is about the look
Scorsese concocts, with help from expert production designer Dante
Ferretti. From the art-deco world of a Hollywood we wish we had
back, to skies teeming with aircraft in impossibly beautiful,
high-atmosphere ballets, "The Aviator" resonates, Scorsese
employing the three-strip Technicolor of the Hughes era to convey a
bygone image with flourish.

Though it is still difficult to think of the youngish DiCaprio
as weighty enough to play such a personality, the fact is DiCaprio
has always shown natural talent as an actor, even when his project
choices are artistically tenuous. DiCaprio employs gumption and
confidence to show off Hughes and his ego, his libido, but summons
desperate humility to bring forth the man's demons without bowing
to freak-show temptations.

A supporting cast helps rock "The Aviator," with Blanchett a
fine-tuned, go-get-'em Hepburn, and stalwarts such as John C.
Reilly and Alec Baldwin adding more acting muscle.

"The Aviator" will be picked apart by those with differing
impressions of Hughes and the era, and its length and sidebar
excursions, also its tendency toward spectacle as opposed to
character study, hamper things somewhat. But as a panorama of the
Hughes legend and a keen, exciting expression of cinema, "The
Aviator" propels a nearly mythical American story with the
derring-do we expect from its adventurous director.